Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking

Goodbye 2011 - Its Been AWESOME!

My "ONE LITTLE WORD" FOR 2011 was {somewhat sarcastically but also sincerely as in appreciating the awesome and trying to make things and my attitude} AWESOME.  On the way over to Bikram Yoga today, I listened to IRC on my iphone - IRC is Improv Resouce Center (I'm pretty sure) and the guy was talking about ninjas and how they were actually stage hands a way long time ago in Japan and that they were awesome because they could change things without anyone noticing and that they had animal spirit guides and this guy said he incorporated that into his improvisational comedy class and had all the students think of an animal and the first one that came to mind would be their spirit guide - and that he, years later, remembers their spirit guides better than he remembers their names.  So I was chewing on that and the first animal that came to me was a white tiger.  So I get over the bridge, check in to yoga  just in time and lay my money down for 3 more months - ready to get fully committed again and get on the mat.  The instructor isn't our regular guy, he is a visitor, our regular guy is taking the class.  But the instructor today, I am not kidding, had a gigantic tiger tattoo on his right shoulder AND after every single pose, instead of saying "Ok"  or "next" or whatever, he'd say "AWESOME"!  I thought this was a  completely perfect way to end the year.  Plus, I plan on enjoying tonight's festivities - and Bikram Yoga burns 1000 calories!  Plus I did 3 hours of housework and one hour of kayaking for a total of 1,786 calories burned so far today - and that is, indeed, AWESOME!

And Yes! That is my honey in the kayak with me - I showed him my HOPE tree on the island and on our way back we got a show from about 11 or 12 dolphins - seriously awesome, really!

NAMASTE  - see you next year - my year of HOPE!

December Daily #30

One more day of December Daily and the year 2011 & then I'm starting on all these resolutions & One Little Word & Twelve & Move More Eat Well & Round Up & all sorts of other fantastic things in 2012.

New Years Resolutions

I made this page a couple of years ago and I'm STILL on my journey to attaining my goal weight.  I am HOPING that 2012 will be my year.  I'm enjoying a relaxing day today but I'm mentally gearing up to hit it hard in the new year and am excited about the MOVE MORE EAT WELL class at Big Picture.  

MY 12 RESOLUTIONS FOR 2012:

1. Reach my #1 Goal at the Office

2. More togetherness w/  Charlie - just the 2 of us.

3. Three {yes 3!} Ski Trips.   Whoo Hooo!

4. Find time everyday 4 Yoga, Stepping, Weights or some sort of exercise.

5.  Keep up with Project Life & post 52 Weeks on my Blog.

6. Finish writing & editing first Improv Scrapbooking Book & Write & epublish 6 more.

7. Finish Losing 50 Pounds & Attain Goal Weight by 7/4/12

8.  Take cre8tive classes and spend time everyday creating & learning new things.

9. Celebrate Ally's 9th.

10. Celebrate Mac's 10th.

11. Get New Venture Going w/ Charlie & Finish 11 or More by End of Year.

12. Create 12x12 = 144 layouts in the Twelve Class. 

(Bonus:  13. Celebrate our 13th Wedding Anniversary!)

What are your NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS?

December Daily #25 & #26

I have completed Christmas and Boxing Day and a few other pages.  I'm all caught up and am planning to do December Daily until the end of the month.

 

December Daily Ustream Update

 I totally missed Cathy Zielske's MOVE MORE EAT WELL chat today, but I did make a little video on ustream about my December Daily progress:

 

 

December Daily #29

I know that December Daily only goes to the 25th - or at least I think it does, but I still have extra room in my American Crafts 8x8 album so I figured I'd go to the end of the month.   Here is today's page - a self-portrait of the family at year's end & I saw this idea on Pinterest of putting everyone's birthdays and the anniversary date together - and since our anniversary is coming up, I figured it would be a good place to include it (I have mixed up the numbers for internet purposes). 

Also, I tried to do the paper strips chevron trick from Jennifer McGuire with this diagonal paper but I couldn't figure it out so I just used a paper strip instead.  I'm going to try that trick again, so I'll post my second attempt soon.

The family picture is the one I used on the first page of my Project Life 2012 album.

P.S. I figured out the chevron stripes thing using plain old striped paper (NOT diagonally striped paper):

 

Always Moving Forward

Cart Before Horse.  If you'd like to join me in any of these Big Picture Classes, please use this link to sign up:  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR BIG PICTURE CLASSES!  The membership is free and there are several free classes if you just want to dip your toe in to the online scrapbooking class world, this is an excellent place to start.

Story People Quote: "Feels like some kind of ride, but its turning out to be life going absolutely perfectly."  And I stamped my finger print in the stamp square on the "this is life" 4x6 card in the lower left corner.  I'm feeling fairly clever about that.

Yes.  I know I still have a major portion of December's Project Life to catch up on and a few days of December Daily, but its like Walt Disney said (it went something like): "We don't spend much time looking back around here, we are always moving forward."  I'm excited about the new year.  I love beginnings.  And I saw Cathy Zielske's post about her family self portrait and her new class and was inspired to get my family to sit and pose for the Project Life Albums - I'm sticking this one in the end of 2011 & in the beginning of 2012:  (two birds - and no Kelly I don't think killing birds is ok either - which doesn't explain your delicious chicken dip btw - just saying)

And NO! I am not wearing pajama jeans.  The rest of my family wore sweat pants and I went in to work and they kept teasing that my jeans were pajama jeans, they were not - they were dark wash boot leg regular old jeans thank you very much, and yes I did put back a few pounds on during the holidays but I had no trouble buttoning them, it was a controlled kind of feast; I am ready to get back on the hard core workout train.

P.S. I am using Becky Higgins' Clementine Core Kit plus Page Protector Style A for my 2012 Project Life Album:

I couldn't find the link for page protector style A so I linked B - word of advice - if you like this stuff - buy it quick because it tends to sell out.

P.S. On Beginnings:  We saw a movie called Beginners the other night - it was pretty good - here is the link, plus one for beginning yoga, and one for an old David Bowie movie called Absolute Beginners which was pretty awesome - I remember loving it but don't remember what it was about anymore; and on that note - there is a quote about children not remembering what you said or did but they remember how you made them  feel - does anyone know that one?

P.S. For more from the Story People:

Just Scheduled My Annual Mammogram

Thanks to a reminder to schedule my annual mammogram by my friend Alison commenting here on the blog - hey Alison!  I love you too - even though we don't see each other as often as we should - I love "seeing" you here & on Facebook. 

Link to Image Source

My "One Little Word" word for 2012  is HOPE but I'm hoping that it won't be a pink ribbon kind of hope. But knowing and early detection in the world of boobies is important so I am happy to stay on top of this issue on an annual basis - and I admittedly need to be better about home monthly exams.

Alison has an amazing story of early detection through home monthly exams and she has an amazing breast cancer survival story and she is one of my own personal favorite people, here is a scrapbook page that I made about meeting her:

And here is the link to the blog post about her: Alison is Awesome Blog Post.

Here is a friendly video about checking your boobies and getting younger women on board with this concept:

Check Your Boobies from by.luuvu on Vimeo.

 So check your boobies and tell your girlfriends too ok?

 

December Daily #24

I feel like an Elf at crunchtime on December 24th - almost there with finishing my December Daily Album - I am ready for it to be done - and it almost is - just a few more pages.

Here is Christmas Eve / December 24th  for December Daily:

Mission Impossible?

Why does finishing December Daily seem like Mission Impossible - I technically only have two more days - but it seems like a really gigantic job.  I'm hoping to put it - and my kids - to bed in the very immediate future.

Meantime, I did add a fluff page after being inspired by Katrina Simeck's Blog Post Winter Staycation, I actually copied and pasted her post and then put in my own words but the structure is the same.  Easy and done.  Here it is my take on this idea:

I did the page in word perfect (yes I prefer word perfect to word) and printed it out on plain white cardstock and glue-sticked a Christmas card (blue) to the left side of the page, and on the B side of that page, I just stuck a bunch of random stuff that was on my desk. 

And yes, those Christmas Barbies have sung "Deck the Halls" about a bazillion times and Miss Ally Lu Lu came in to the scrapbooking room another bazillion times to have me sew pink Kleenex into sleeping bags, pillows and other room accessories for said Barbies - I really should have taken a picture of that too - ok, I just took some  - (I wonder if there is a reaction to December Daily of taking less than normal pictures in January - we'll see).  Presenting home made Barbie pillows and Barbie Snow Park complete with real snowman and sled and Barbie Fishing Pool with homemade fishing poles, etc:

Ok back to the December Daily Wrap UP.

 

Wrapping Up Christmas

Stacy Julian had a line on her blog about being OK with the Mess of Christmas because it is evidence of the day's abundance; I paraphrased her and added it over a photo and I keep repeating it to myself to be OK with all the stuff that needs to be cleaned up.

Along those lines, I have been listening to this song called "There's Hope" by India Arie - give it a listen while you are wrapping it up.  Trust me it will give you some hope to tackle job of cleaning up Christmas:

 

And its got a good upbeat for cleaning.  Seriously Awesome.  I'm trying to add a little of my One Little Word into each day, I'm going to plant something today in this pot I painted yesterday:

I planned to wrap up Christmas today and put all the decorations away, but there are 5 kids in my house! So I don't think that is going to happen. I did manage to clean up the kitchen and have told the kids that there are no more dishes today - we are paper plates from here on out. The boys are playing wii and nerf guns and can be heard from miles away despite that they are in my son's room with the door closed. The girls are eating ice cream cones and playing Barbies and peeking in on the boys since there is a set of french doors with blinds on my son's room that we keep permanently closed but that make for a good spying place for the girls on the boys. I am also working on wrapping up December Daily but that is going to be delayed a bit too since I don't like the girls and boys to play together unsupervised - so I'm on Mom Duty until things settle down a bit more. Here's what I did get done this morning:

More wrapping up of December Daily to come soon !

Looking Forward to 2012 - My Year of HOPE

I am looking forward to 2012 and my year of HOPE.   Hope is my "one little word" for 2012.  The Quote inside the O is "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.  BEGIN IT NOW." - Goethe.  I'm a big fan of beginnings so even though this quote does not include my word, I included this quote in my word because it describes how I am feeling.  I like this quote too: "To change one's life: START immediately.  Do it flamboyantly." - William James.  I think I'm going to print out that photo large for my December Daily Album - I still need to finish that up and wrap up Christmas.  I am also a fan of taking down the Christmas decorations relatively soon after the big day.  Maybe tomorrow I'll do that, I'd like to have it done before New Year's Eve.

I got a chance to escape family time for a few hours this afternoon and went out for sushi with extra wasabi and hot tea and then to a home goods store and then to the craft store.  Total Bliss.

I spent about $12 at the sushi bar and another $12 at the craft store.  I bought a bunch of star Christmas ornaments with my word "HOPE" on each one, I put one on my key chain and plan to use the others in OLW type projects. 

I also took a look around the craft store for what else was on sale, what was new, and what had the word "hope" on it.  I quickly decided that my word "HOPE" was not a cursive word and was not pink or purple; my HOPE is yellow green or aquamarine blue and it is in bold letters - probably capitals but not necessarily.   My HOPE is bold and shining and bright and strong.

I got out the paint and made use of some of the Christmas cards we received this year:

I made a little over a dozen of these HOPE cards and I'm going to tuck them away in my Twelve Class Bin to use in my Big Picture Classes in 2012.  Click Here to See My "Twelve Class" Bin.

I'm all signed up for Ali Edwards' class at Big Picture Scrapbooking and I also signed up for Stacy Julian's Twelve Class; Cathy Zielske's More More Eat Well and for Katie Nelson's Round-Up.  So excited and hopeful (wink) about all of these.  I am planning to take some art classes at the local art center too, I stamped HOPE right on the course catalog.

Please leave a comment and let me know if you are signed up for any classes at BPC or anywhere else, what do you want to learn in 2012? 

 

My "One Little Word" Found Me Today

After all the Christmas morning hullabaloo, the water was calm so I decided to go for a kayak ride, my son and his cousin came along. While the boys were having wild adventure in the jungle, I thought about what I was going to do to decide on my "one little word" for next year. I had been thinking about using my word from last year "awesome" again, but I wanted something new; I even thought about using the word new or start, but neither of them really stuck with me. I also thought about the word light, but that didn't seem exactly perfect either. I was undecided. So, while walking down the beach alone, I decided that the next printed word I saw would be my word, no take backs, that I'd just go with it. And then I quickly hoped that it would NOT be "Coke" or "Pepsi" in case I saw an old bottle or can on the island. I came to a mangrove tree with a basket hanging from it, next to it I saw the word that I thought was "top" and then it looked like it might be "open" but as I got closer, I could see clearly that the word was

HOPE

I'll go back to the island soon to get a photo of the tree.

I just googled the definition of hope and this is the first definition I found:

__________________________________________________________

hope (hp)

v. hoped, hop·ing, hopes

v.intr. 1. To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment.

2. Archaic To have confidence; trust.

v.tr. 1. To look forward to with confidence or expectation: We hope that our children will be successful.

2. To expect and desire. See Synonyms at expect.

n. 1. A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.

2. Something that is hoped for or desired: Success is our hope.3. One that is a source of or reason for hope: the team's only hope for victory.4. often Hope Christianity The theological virtue defined as the desire and search for a future good, difficult but not impossible to attain with God's help.5. Archaic Trust; confidence.Idiom:

hope against hope To hope with little reason or justification.

---

[Middle English hopen, from Old English hopian.]

---

hoper n.

And this is the image I found when I searched "hope tree":

Image Source: New Hope Tree Design

I am loving this word "hope" and I think it is perfect for my 2012 "one little word" and I am full of hope. Merry Christmas ! :) Katie.

Christmas Eve

1. Grandfather loved his "This is Your Life" book and kept telling me how no other daughter-in-law in the world would have ever made such a thing for a father-in-law, he was touched and I was so happy he loved it, this is what it feels like when they say "its better to give than to recieve" - go scrapbooking!

2.  We let Allison open lot and lots of presents.

And she made out like a bandit.

3. We checked in with Santa Cam to see that he was in Australia & he'd arrive in the US around 10:30, and Mac added a few things to his list and made sure I emailed Santa the updates.  Allison checked one last time on the Portable North Pole to make sure she was still on the Nice List.

4. I managed to get everyone in a group shot by the tree despite completely breaking my Canon Point & Shoot earlier today (P.S. Santa I've got an update too) - Allison lent me her point and shoot.

5. My Mom came over and made our family traditional favorite Christmas Eve dinner: Baked Stuffed Shrimp.

And we helped ;)

6. Earlier today, Allison decided she was ready to ride her bike without training wheels!  Go Ally Go!

7.  Aunt Cary came for a visit.

Just realized I didn't get a picture of me and my sweetie, we are going to go get the kids to bed and wait for Santa to get here. 

Merry Christmas.

December Daily #23

My husband and I have this little tradition of sitting by the Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve and having a warm fuzzy talk about Christmas and the past year and the upcoming year; it is of my very favorite times at Christmas.  I'm looking forward to that tonight.  But last night, we had a "sit by the tree" talk with the kids - sure I had to entice them with some Advent presents - but it was really nice, we each said something we were thankful for, we each said something nice about every person and even Dandy and the late Duke, and we each said something that we thought would make our family more awesome for next year.  It really was awesome.  My favorite thankful thought was Mac's, he said that I always give him encouraging words; its nice to know that I do and that he recognizes it.  Warm Fuzzy feeling - achieved, ahhh.

I used the back of a Christmas card with the words "goodwill * peace * hope * joy * cheer * prosperity * happiness * harmony" as the base of the December 23rd card (just remembered I forgot to put the the #23 circle on the page - doing that now) both because we never got around to sending Christmas cards to friends and family this year (we just did office cards) so I just posted that photo on line and because the theme of the card was similar to the theme of our conversation and the present - reminding me symbolically to enjoy the present moment - to stop and take time to connect with my family. 

My December Daily Album which is an American Crafts 8x8 album still has plenty of room - on the right side are the pages and on the left, for comparison, is a stack of Christmas cards we received this year - a sampling - (you know, like when they give Hugh Grant some of the cards in Love Actually), actually the stack is probably about 75% of the Christmas cards we received this year, I thought we got approximately the same amount we normally get, but Charlie thought the envelope was a little light (Soprano's reference that he uses when he thinks something is not enough).

Please leave a comment:  1. Did you send Christmas Cards this year?  2. Did you think you received more, less or the same amount of Christmas cards as years past? 3. Are you doing December Daily and/or are you planning to do it next year?  I think it is going to be one of my favorite traditions - I kept up most of the time this year and I have absolutely loved the process of putting together my December Daily Album. 

Merry Christmas!  :) Katie.